8:07 a.m.

A rough night. I went to bed thinking I could get by without a sedative since I have calmed down a bit after hearing from the oncologist, via Joan and Mom and Dad, that Mom would have six months to a year to live if she took no treatment at all. She is going to take treatment — there is even an experimental treatment in July that she should be eligible for — so we can hope she will be around a while longer.

But I had a slight neckache and had to get up at 2 a.m. to take a pill. Already I had been dreaming -- I was with a man whose wife died of a brain tumour around Xmas. I was mothering one of their young children.

Either I woke up many times, or was conscious as I slept of how awful I feel about what is going to happen to Mom, how she may suffer. I am fucking sick about it, through and through, heartsick, soulsick. I’d say to myself to calm down, “She’s okay NOW, she’s safe NOW, she’s okay NOW” and that would help a little, to focus on the present instead of imagining the future.

I did not realize how much I love Mom or how important she is to me, until now. I took her presence in my life for granted. I assumed she’d be around a long time yet and in good health, as she’s always been.

We took pictures before we left Salmon Arm, and I cropped the best one of Mom and set it as wallpaper on my computer screen. I see her beloved face daily and my heart opens up. Love pours out, but also sadness and fear and anger and disbelief. I look into her left eye and see the resolute seriousness with which she is accepting this turn of events; I look into her right eye and see her sense of humour and the lighthearted twinkle with which she meets all of us who are rallying around her right now.

There is so much — no, not so much in quantity, but so much in depth — that I want to say to her, but I can’t say yet because I would start sobbing and blubbering and just dismay her. I will probably need to write her a letter to get it said.

Karen phoned last night, wondering how I am doing. I told her I am fine until I think or talk about it, then I cry. She said that is not happening to her, and she thinks it’s maybe because all she thinks and talks about are the good things, the hopeful positive things.

“Maybe I’m just lying to myself,” she said. I don’t know; whatever works to keep her functioning effectively must be okay. I envy her more balanced emotions and her strength to keep on accomplishing things each day. I am a lightweight in comparison, a weakling.

I stood at the checkout counter yesterday afternoon and a friend came and waited at the end of it for me. “I’m so sorry to hear this about your mom,” she said. “How is she doing?”

“She’s feeling fine right now; there’s a treatment or two that she can try, and you’d never know to look at her that anything is out of the ordinary.”

I was stating the positive, but felt I was skirting around my real feelings, which are that Mom has terminal cancer and it is the most frightening and terrible thing in the world. “It sucks,” I added in the interest of genuine communication, trying hard not to cry there in the store, and she agreed and we put our heads together for a moment.